Palmer man doesn’t remember his crimes

Frontiersman

PALMER — Although he pleaded guilty to arson and indecent exposure, a 27-year-old man said he honestly couldn’t remember what got him into so much trouble one night in February.

“On the night I was arrested, I blacked out at the bar and woke up in jail,” Brian McFadden told Superior Court Judge Eric Smith Monday morning.

He said he was wet, had obviously been pepper sprayed and was wearing the color of prison scrubs reserved for those accused of felony-level crimes. Having no memory of what happened that night, he said he could not explain to the judge why he did what he did.

“I really can’t tell you what I was thinking,” he said.

Palmer Police have a pretty good summary, though. They say officers Andy DeVeaux and Ed Mooney were summoned to the small house that houses Liberty Tax Service in downtown at around 4:30 a.m. There they found McFadden, very intoxicated, trying to light things on fire in and around his basement apartment. His neighbor and her infant child were still inside, afraid to go out into the hall with McFadden acting so strangely.

When police arrived, they report McFadden exposed himself to DeVeaux and nearly kicked out a patrol car window. That’s when the pepper spray came out. All of this added up to charges of arson, indecent exposure, assault, reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct. McFadden pleaded guilty to the first two charges.

By the time McFadden’s case got to Monday’s hearing, the attorneys in the case had already decided on a sentence — six years with two suspended and four to serve on the arson and 90 days on the indecent exposure charge. Smith eventually accepted the sentence, but not before attorneys took turns explaining why it made sense.

“This was, needless to say, a strange case driven, obviously, by alcohol and substance abuse,” Assistant District Attorney Michael Perry said.

But he, like everyone in court that day, didn’t dispute that McFadden was generally a nice enough guy — when he wasn’t drinking. But it’s the drinking that’s the problem, Perry said, and pointed to McFadden’s status as being in violation of parole in two states and a substantial criminal history in Alaska despite only living here a short time.

“Mr. McFadden’s behavior was very extreme and bizarre,” Perry said. “He was certainly a danger to himself, a danger to this entire apartment complex, a danger to the officers and firefighters that had to respond.”

McFadden’s attorney, Andrew Weinraub, said that his client planned to remand himself to prison Monday and was agreeing to serve 180 days for violating his probation in one case and 55 for violating in another.

But, he said, McFadden is as intelligent as any client he’s had and certainly capable of living a law-abiding life.

“There’s glowing letters from Turkey Red that say he’s a wonderful employee,” Weinraub said. “That certainly speaks to Brian’s better side, which he does have.”

Even the landlord who had to clean up after McFadden’s spree said that this was really one major exception to an otherwise spotless record as a very good tenant.

Choking back tears, McFadden spent most of his time speaking to the court detailing all of the people he hurt, from his neighbor to his landlord to Liberty Tax, who likely lost customers because he’d cut the phone lines and it took some time to get the business back up and running. He also said he’d caused trouble for his girlfriend and unborn child.

“Now I’ll be labeled along with a lot of other things, a deadbeat father who doesn’t support his baby,” he said. “I will never drink again. I haven’t since that fateful night and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that’s the case.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.